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Recently on the 17th of September my wife’s mother who has lived with us for the last four years passed away. Her name was Irene Wills, I called her “I” like in the way you would say eye and my children called her Nana. She was mum to my wife. We miss her but know she is in a better place free of the troubles that cancer brings. Incidentally the 17th of September is my birthday. My children say it’s just another way of remembering there nana.
And remembrance is where this post will take you. I wrote a post back on the 12th of May 2011, I titled it emotions part two. I wrote this just after my father passed away so it seemed fitting to repost it today. I think it applies very well. So please read on and as always feel free to leave a comment.

Emotions part two
POSTED ON MAY 12, 2011

Grief Can be the most destructive of the emotions; it’s more like a lucky dip, depending on what part of your life your in. When you are in your younger years it’s all about working out how to deal with such loss.
As children we all look at our parents and regard them as invincible. Mum and dad will be there forever. Then we have our first pet or relative pass away and the walls of safety are shuck.
Like all things experience makes for better control and composure. The more that pass away the better we deal with it.
Personally for me I sometimes feel I’m a bit to composed.

On the other end of the scale people who don’t except loss tend to have a hard time coming to terms with the person that has passed away. This can lead to all the bad emotions like anger and regret.

In the end it all comes to control, no one wants to have control took away from them. When we lose loved ones in my experience it’s when I felt at my most helpless.

There is nothing we can do to change this. No amount of wealth or power will bring that person back. In the end we all have to give in to the overwhelming power of death.
When we say that someone needs time to except the death, what we are really saying is we have to except that there is no mistake and no second chance and we are never going to see this person alive again.

How to deal with grief for me (and we all deal differently) it’s all about memory’s. We have this wonderful brain that holds everything we have ever seen, smelt, heard and touched. So take advantage and make what I call a memory box of the loved one who has pass away. Take any personal items you might have, place them in the box. Then in the years to come when you feel you might be losing there face or voice in your mind, take out the box and like a miracle it all comes flooding back. Sometimes with overwhelming results. But usually welcomed.
I have done this now more than once, each time I learn a bit more on how I deal with loss. The overwhelming lesson is that we should never be scared of our own memory’s. It’s this ability that sets us apart from all other life. We play things out in our minds so that we can learn and love from people who came before. To me this is a wonderful gift that we give when we die. My father was a great story teller and when he died I just searched in my mind to find all that he had told me. I now have enough material to last two life times. Thats mine and his, thanks dad.
This would not be if I shut of the memory’s.